Book Description
Kathryn Mahoney was undeniably "cracked at birth" and we're glad! Join her as she shares her hysterical personal essays on everything from giving birth to a kitchen, to surviving the slings and arrows of outrageous toddlers. It's a wild ride through parenting, marriage, and chaos you'll never forget.
Customer Reviews:
Universal Truths & Embarrassing Secrets.......2005-12-14
From The Rebel Housewife to One Madcap Mom...I felt an instant kinship with Kathryn Mahoney. She writes fast-paced, clever essays on universal truths and embarrassing secrets of motherhood -- and the lady is funny. From totally relate-able riffs on Reality TV, modern-day children's birthday parties, and our eerily number-ized society to WYSIWYG Woman (which I whole-heartedly support!), CRACKED AT BIRTH offers fantastic diversion and out-loud laughs to overwhelmed Moms everywhere -- CRACKED AT BIRTH would be a great gift to those women in your life.
-- Sherri Caldwell, Humor Columnist & Reviewer,
Co-Author, The Rebel Housewife Rules: To Heck With Domestic Bliss!
Fun to read!.......2005-11-30
Kathy was funny in high school and she has gotten funnier! She is a modern Erma Bombeck. My husband picked up the book and started chuckling as he began to read. We need to keep a sense of humor in the midst of the chaos of family life. Kathy has a knack for putting the adventures into words that we all can relate to and laugh at. A great read for Moms (and Dads too!)who are trying to maintain their sanity through the ups and downs of everyday life in the trenches.
True to Life!.......2005-11-25
This book is just great... true to life stories with a humorous twist! A good read when traveling for any parent!
cracked me up!.......2005-11-16
A friend gave this to me as a "baby #3 gift". It was so nice to just sit and laugh about all the craziness of motherhood. It's nice to know I'm not alone!
Cracked me up!.......2005-10-27
Some lives were just made to be made fun of. Some lives are so wacky, so silly, so undeniably cracked up, you just can't help but chuckle. Kathryn S. Mahoney is living one of those lives.
Kathryn Mahoney, who thinks she was CRACKED AT BIRTH, takes time to sit back and good naturedly marvel at the absurdity in her life. And, like the next door neighbor who keeps us in stitches with her zany tales, Mahoney shares the absurdity with us - one laughable story at a time.
CRACKED AT BIRTH is a collection of Mahoney's essays from her humor column, "Sunny Side Up," which has been running in six newspapers published by Nashoba Publishing of Devens, MA, since 2001. In this lighthearted essay collection, Mahoney tackles such hilarities as:
*Attempting yoga with children in the house
*The feeling of being invisible
*How to make your husband leave the room
*Household mishaps
*Valentine's Day romance failures
Mahoney seems to have mastered the art of being funny without being too sarcastic. Her style is refreshing and fun, and nearly all of her essays end with a feeling that, given the choice of any other life and family on the planet, she'd still choose the life and family she has. Her essays are warm and endearing, with just enough silly thrown in to make them irresistible.
While CRACKED AT BIRTH is consistent - none of her essays are weak or boring - Mahoney's funniest work revolves around her husband and the relationship between the two of them. Far be it from Mahoney to engage in man-bashing - she'd rather lovingly poke fun at the things that make her hubby so adorably male. This slant on love, marriage, and romance is a refreshing style for all those women who adore their hubbies but sometimes just can't help but shake their heads and chuckle over something they've said or done. Mahoney should follow CRACKED AT BIRTH with another humor book ("Cracked at Marriage," perhaps?) filled with nothing but marriage and romance-related essays.
Make no mistake, however; CRACKED AT BIRTH points out the sunnier side of so much more than love and marriage. Mahoney has no qualms ribbing her kids, her mother, even herself! It is this quality that gives her work tantalizing breadth.
Good for a light read and perfect for the bookshelf of any aspiring humorist, Kathryn S. Mahoney's CRACKED AT BIRTH will tickle your funny bone and maybe even make you look at your own cracked life in a little sunnier light.
Book Description
Veteran SWAT cop Tony Jones lays out the essential elements of planning and carrying out tactical SWAT operations. Covers mission analysis, obstacle breaching, light-armored vehicle use, fire and maneuver, target recon, hostage/suspect/team considerations and more.
Customer Reviews:
To basic but good written!.......2006-02-20
The book is good written. It cover the basic and littlebit more on leadership. A quite detailed on how to write a "warning order" which I had never seen before. It also cover movement outside but not on how to move indoors. Anyway all this should be known to an new Team leader and like someone elses wrote it is littlebit to basic. If you have never learn any leadership at all -read it. If you are interested in planning there is better books.
3 Stars just becuase it is good written otherwise it should be a 2 star.
An other book on planning is M.Lonsdale-RAIDS
Too basic for leadership title.......2005-05-18
The author covered the basics very well, but it is very basic to have the word "Leadership" in the title. This book would be good for a new operator, but anyone with tactical experience should be looking for another book. Experienced tactical operators will find this book decent for review, but not much else.
Complete waste of money.......2004-02-17
This book is not applicable to American tactical law enforcement. It seems most of the book was copied straight out of U.S. Army field manuals. an utter waste of time and money.
A good guide.......2001-11-20
Very well written. The author is obviously experienced in this field. The content is basic and more areas could have been covered. The areas dealt with in this book is well presented and will be of great use to any SWAT leader or instructor. I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next by the same author.
Good for a beginner but too basic for experienced leaders.......1999-01-30
I read the book cover to cover and didn't find too much that I didn't know already. The book did cover alot of basics that someone new to a SWAT environment would benefit from. It is a good "refresher" book for the SWAT leader.
Customer Reviews:
Thought provoking book.......2001-07-12
This book changed my view on how the experiences of Chicanos were represented by showing a parallel between Galilean Jews and Chicanos. It is refreshening and liberating. A well read book, and not too heavy on writing style. Easy to read and comprehend on what the author's trying to describe.
Galilean Journey, understanding of differences.......2001-07-07
Galilean Journey is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I would have enjoyed it more had the language been in simpler terms, but it defined a culture very different from mine, in such a way, that I will view the world, never the same.
Story of hope for marginalized people.......1999-01-12
This book is a short, effective treatment of much forgotten aspect of the gospels--the liberative aspect. Fluid and knowledgable, Elizondo backs each point amply with gospel text and other research. While Elizondo focuses primarily on two marginalized groups, the Biblical Galileans and the Mexican-Americans of today, in no way are the ideas exclusive to the two. The liberative aspect of the gospel is easily applicable to all, since all humans are oppressed by sin. Elizondo's prose is light and comprehensible, which is uncharacteristic of many books of theology. The book shouldn't take one long to read, and it is worth the small amount of time spent reading it.
Book Description
Biology was forged into a single, coherent science only within living memory. In this volume the thinkers responsible for the "modern synthesis" of evolutionary biology and genetics come together to analyze that remarkable event. In a new Preface, Ernst Mayr calls attention to the fact that scientists in different biological disciplines varied considerably in their degree of acceptance of Darwin's theories. Mayr shows us that these differences were played out in four separate periods: 1859 to 1899, 1900 to 1915, 1916 to 1936, and 1937 to 1947. He thus enables us to understand fully why the synthesis was necessary and why Darwin's original theory--that evolutionary change is due to the combination of variation and selection--is as solid at the end of the twentieth century as it was in 1859.
Book Description
Best Damn Garage in Town: My life and Adventures was originally published as a 3 volume boxed set of 1,100 pages with over 400 photographs. This version of the book combines all the stories and most of the photographs into a single volume with smaller type and photographs in a bookstore package, as opposed to a coffee table package.
Smokey got the idea for writing a history of stock car racing after giving a talk to explain racing to a group of kids at Lowe's Motorspeedway, around 1995. He realized that all the people who were a part of the early days were dying and most of the ones who were still alive were too involved with racing to be able to tell the real stories. He started writing this book as a history of stock car racing and ended up with look at American history of the past 60 years through a very unique set of eyes.
The first volume, Walkin' Under a Snake's Belly, covers Smokey's life outside racing, beginning with growing up in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania on a farm, dropping out of high school to take care of the family and going off to World War II as a B-17 pilot. The war stories are told through the eyes of a young man who believed all that the Army Air Corps taught him, but he had a mind of his own and was also hell-bent on having fun at all costs. (If that meant irritating a few generals, then that was just par for the course.)
After the racing years, Smokey ended spending most of his time working on his inventions and working in the oil and gold fields of Ecuador. Along the way, Smokey had a knack for finding fun and adventure everywhere he went. Alcohol, women and speed were his main addictions - he eventually gave up alcohol, but never did give up the other two.
The second volume, All Right You Sons-a-Bitches, Let's Have a Race, chronicles the stock car racing years in living color. The warning on these books, that they are not to be read by those under 18 unless they are with a grandparent who can translate the social and moral implications of the stories, is not to be taken lightly. (Smokey even includes his own dictionary to explain the terms that racers used in the early days to the uninformed.) Smokey and his band of merry compatriots were racers and there were only two things on their mind when the sun went down Ð women and booze. Smokey had his share of both during 15 years of racing, when racers were looked down on as the dregs of society. Nothing could stop his dream of being the fastest at the sport he loved, no matter what happened along the way Ð the sign of a true racer.
During his years in stock car racing, Smokey fell in love with a mistress that he would visit every May for over 20 years Ð The Indianapolis 500. The first half of the third volume, Li'l Skinny Rule Book, covers his love of this famed event and the wonderful stories of the days before the big corporate sponsors; when it was just men and their machines, sleeping on the floor in the garage and most times coming home with nothing. As the title implies, Smokey loved Indy because the rules were so simple. His inventive mind and knack for thinking way outside the box were at their best when Indy was involved.
The fourth section of the book covers his years of inventing inside and outside of racing. SmokeyÕs 10 patents don't begin to cover the breadth and depth of his inventing. His work with the car companies and on the racetrack led to a host of developments that have improved surface transportation for everyone. The value of some of his ideas and inventions, like his famous hot vapor engine, were never fully realized.
Many books have been written about the last 50 years of American history, but few are this entertaining, revealing and introspective all at the same time. Real stories from World War II, stock cars, the automotive industry and the Mexican Road Race are just a few of the elements in Smokey's autobiography. They combine to make Best Damn Garage in TownÉThe World According to Smokey one of the most interesting books in a long time.
Customer Reviews:
Great book, couldn't put it down........2007-06-09
I consider Smokey to be one of the greatest things ever for automotive innovation. This book is somewhat hard to read. It almost seems like he dictated it to somebody and told them "Don't edit a thing!!" If you get your self into the right frame of mind while reading, you'll have a lot of fun reading. I thought I wouldn't be too interested in his WWII years, but it was one of the most interesting parts. He did some really cool stuff during the earl years of NASCAR, but he doesn't really get into too much detail until you get to the technical chapters. When he does get into the technical stuff, he warns readers that it's gonna get technical and if you don't like that sort of thing, skip ahead. He also has no problems talking about his failures, and thats nice to see.
He is very repetitive. I guess the book was written over several years, and he must of forgotten he'd already told a story here or there. If you're a sensitive person, you might want to pass on this book. Lots of sex stories
It blows me away that a 10th grade dropout was able to become a B17 aviator and one of the greatest automotive engineers ever. I personally think this book is good enough to be made into a movie. If you're a racing fan, you must read this book! I'm buying the hard bound version next for my library.
SMOKEY!!.......2007-04-23
Anyone who knows NASCAR should know who Smokey Yunick was. I thought I did till I read this book. Sure, he could build a bullet fast race car, sometimes stretch the rulebook alittle. I knew that. But I never knew what this guy had really done in his life. What a great story. The guy lived a life that would make just about any guy awful jealous. He lived by his own rulebook, and backed down to no one. Need someone to look up to? Need a hero? Read this book. You may hate him. But if you don't, you'll love him!!
Smokey's Smokin.......2007-01-22
Best Damn Garage is one of the better books I've read on a racing personalty. I have a couple dozen books on NASCAR and the people who raced from the 40's till the present. This book and Fireball by Godwin Kelly are must reads for the diehard fan.
The History of Nascar (using four letter words).......2007-01-07
The book starts with Smokey's rough childhood in rural PA and then a very graphic view of WWII as a bomber pilot in Europe and how he ends up with the Flying Tigers working for Chiang Kai-Shek(pretty wild life!).
Next Smokey gives an insiders look at the history of early NASCAR and his relationship with Detroit automakers. Nothing is sugar coated and I'm sure offended a few people. Also many details about automotive engineering, rules bending and his experience with INDY cars.
If you're a car guy this book belongs on your shelf.
If you like this sort of book, this is the sort of book you'll like.......2005-11-09
Smokey Yunick lived a long and interesting life, and damn near ALL of it is in this book. It's a great story, but I hesitate to call it a great book.
It's a chore to read - figure on devoting about 24 hours to read it, and to do that the Smokey way, it should be in one sitting ;-) He's cranky and repetitive, he digresses and loses his narrative thread. He's a self-admitted cheater, so you wonder how much of the story you can even believe.
But I must say it got me by the short hairs, the story did, and there is a hell of a lot of story there. Drilling for oil in Ecuador, running the Carrera Panamerica, bringing the wildest car ever seen at Indy to fruition. The World War II stories alone would make a fine book on their own. He was a constant experimenter, making use of the Scientific Principle at a time when most racing was by guess and by gosh, and he was largely self-taught. I also read Mark Donahue's book "Unfair Advantage" at the same time, and Mark, coming up 15 years later, with a degree in engineering, didn't do any better in systematically developing cars as Smokey, and for a long time did far worse.
One of the things that bothers me about Smokey, as he describes himself, is what a hypocrite he seeems to be. He decries the destruction of the jungle as he witnessed it in Ecuador, but seems to be oblivious of his own complicity (road building, mining, oil drilling) in bringing it on. He peppers the whole book with shots at Clinton, but he clearly did himself everything Clinton did and worse. His attitude towards minorities and women is, to my sensibilities, flat out repugnant. He tells a racist "welfare queen" story about a woman in a Cadillac shopping with food stamps, but his WWII stories described in detail the scams he was running on Uncle. I've enjoyed reading about him, but I'm flat grateful I didn't know him.
If you, like me, grew up on Smokey in Popular Science, and loved racing from, say, 1950 to 1975, it's a worthwhile investment. If that doesn't describe you, you maybe oughta pick up another book.
Average customer rating:
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Wheeled Armoured Fighting Vehicles in Service
B. T. White
Manufacturer: Blandford
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
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Military Science
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ASIN: 0713710225 |
Book Description
The Challenge of the Exception is the key that unlocked the ideas of Carl Schmitt, a leading political theorist and jurist who influenced the thoughts of, among others, Hannah Arendt, Carl Joachim Friedrich, Otto Kirchheimer, Hans Morgenthau, Franz Neumann, and Leo Strauss. Professor Schwab clearly articulates Schmitt's key concepts and relates their centrality to politics and the state, to the political theory of liberalism, democracy and authoritarianism, and to international relations. When Schwab treats Schmitt's interpretations of constitutional questions, for example, he shows how political theory in Germany is inextricably linked with constitutional law, legal theory, and the country's history. Not content to merely deal with Schmitt's profound contributions to twentieth-century thought, Schwab devotes considerable space to the unconscionable compromises that he made with the Third Reich. This, however, failed to help him become the political and legal theorist of Hitler's Germany. Schwab shows how the new Schmitt was suspect from the beginning and, by 1936, Schmitt the hunter had become Schmitt the hunted. Schwab's presentation of the multifaceted Carl Schmitt exposes the reader to a truly interdisciplinary excursion into the humanities and social sciences.
Book Description
Carl Schmitt's thought serves as a warning against the dangers of complacency entailed by triumphant liberalism. His conception of politics is a sharp challenge to those who believe that there is a third way between the left and right and that the increasing moralization of political discourse constitutes a great advance for democracy. Schmitt reminds us forcefully that the essence of politics is struggle and that the distinction between friend and enemy cannot be abolished. Contributions: Gregoris Ananiadis, Agostino Carrino, Catherine Colliot-Thlne, Jorge Dotti, David Dyzenhaus, Paul Hirst, Jean-Franois Kervgan, Chantal Mouffe, Ulrich Preuss, Slavoj Zizek and an important essay by Carl Schmitt available in English for the first time.
Amazon.com
In the 1960s the Hudson River, under threat from polluters and energy concerns but beloved by its shoreline residents and local fishermen, became one of the United States' first major environmental battlegrounds. Out of those early legal wrangles emerged some important environmental legislation, and also the Soundkeeper organization, with a mandate to fight for the health of this historic New York river.
This book reveals something about the organization, and even more about the history of the Hudson and environmentalism in America, from John Winthrop to Newt Gingrich, and quite a bit, too, about the upbringings--glamorous (who'd have thought keeping a pet seal in your swimming pool would lead to activism?) and not-so-unusual--of its authors. Promising early chapters sketch out the exploitation of the river by industry and describe some of its colorful champions. (One of the most interesting here is Robert H. Boyle, the writer of a seminal account of the Hudson, The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History, who comes off as a hero.) A terrific final section explains in accessible terms the basis for environmental law in the founding of our country. In between, this book sometimes falters under the weight of too much information. You can't fault these writers for the work they've done, or for the scattered gems of thoughtful information on the modern environmental movement, which make this book worth reading. Just be prepared to pick through some irrelevancies (did Bobby Shriver really bring a leopard tortoise home for Robert Kennedy Jr. from Kenya in a suitcase?) to get to the heart of this unusual book. --Maria Dolan
Book Description
A modern-day David and Goliath tale, The Riverkeepers is an impassioned firsthand account by two advocates who have taken on powerful corporate and government polluters to win back the Hudson River. John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., tell us how we too can fight for our fundamental right to enjoy our invaluable natural resources.
Revealing shocking stories of commonplace environmental crime -- from drinking water tainted with hospital waste to fish populations contaminated by freely dumped PCBs -- Cronin and Kennedy describe their dramatic confrontations with more than ninety environmental lawbreakers. The Riverkeepers is a timely call to action that will resonate across America as the backlash spearheaded by congressional leaders and their major corporate allies threatens to reverse the hard-won victories in environmental law and policy.
Customer Reviews:
A Monument to Environmental Activism, Struggles and Successes.......2006-06-17
"The Riverkeepers" is one of the most potent calls for environmental awareness and action I have ever read. It is an inspiration for all those interested in becoming serious advocates of a clean world. It stands right along side Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" with it's eye-opening accounts environmental havoc created by thoughtless, greedy, untreated sewage spewing municipalities, chemical companies, power generating plants and manufacturing facilities.
It is the story of how the Hudson River "Riverkeepers" came to be- spawned from a small group of sport and commercial fishermen, the Hudson River Fishermen's Association with their ardent yet eloquent spokesman, Robert H. Boyle, author of "The Hudson River: A natural and unnatural history" and a contributing writer to "Sports Illustrated", all of whom were fed-up with the river being used as toxic waste dump, poisoning the fish, fouling the drinking water and seriously endangering the health and lives of literally millions of people who live both in the Hudson Valley where the headwaters begin at Lake Tear in the Adirondack Mountains and runs South 315 miles down to New York City Harbor where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean and where most of the pollution is concentrated. A sad commentary on one of America's most productive bodies of water.
Significantly and appropriately, this is where the birth of America's first well organized environmental legal challenges to the desecration of America's waterways started. It is the personal stories of those who chose to take a stand and fight seemingly undefeatable corporate giants like General Electric, Con Ed, et al. By combining forces, such groups as the NRDC; Pete Seeger's group, Clearwater; Scenic Hudson, et al., have been able to rectify many wrongs to the environment.
The personal stories of author's John Cronin and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. are inspiring and heartwarming- their trials, tribulations and success' in fighting for environmental justice are a profound demonstration of courage and dedication.
The success of Riverkeepers has replicated itself all over America with separate, but associated groups under the umbrella of the National Alliance of River, Sound & Bay Keepers and most every major body of water in America now has a program.
This is a top choice manual for environmental activism. Highly recommended!
The Reasons Behind Environmentalism.......2005-04-19
I spent most of my younger years in the Hudson Valley, and the work of the Riverkeepers has made a profound and positive impact on our local environment. The story of how they have stood up to the corporate and government polluters is outlined here and is inspiring.
The real story of The Riverkeepers is outlining why they do what they do - our right to clean air, water, and an unspoiled environment. These are not priviliges, they are rights.
For years, anti-environmental hacks have been trying to convince us that to be for the environment is to be anti-property rights, anti-growth, and, as Rush Limbaugh calls us, "wackos." The Riverkeepers points out that these people are motivated by at best a misunderstanding of the issues, and at worst motivated by pure profit.
To be an environmentalist, The Riverkeepers points out, is to be for the very essence of American democracy: the rights of the people to stand up and protect our children, property, livelihoods, and future. The Riverkeepers will not only inspire you, it will make you feel at home in your caring for the environment, by showing you your place in the traditions and philosophy behind the environmental movement.
More than I bargained for.......2004-08-05
I bought this book thinking it would offer a profile of environmental activism that could be turned into action by others- I wanted to see how they did what they did. This I got, but also much more. This a most enlightening book, superbly written, difficult to put down. You get not only a history of environmental activism on the Hudson River, but a brief history of same in the U.S., complete with philosophical underpinnings. If you don't know how corporations act in the U.S., or how government complicity coddles them, read this book. If you THINK you know, read this book. If you are at all concerned about your rights as a citizen, and how they relate to the environment, read this book! An important, gripping work, at once hopeful and dismaying- and certainly inspiring.
American Environmentalism.......2004-04-03
Cronin and Kennedy offer a hopeful and reasonable approach to environmentalism by documenting the great strides that citizens have made along the Hudson River. One of the most common critisims of environmentalism is that it fails to take the livelihood of workers into account. The authors show that this doesn't have to be the case and that protecting our environment can actually ensure better job security.
Along with the specific example of the Hudson River, the authors go through the variety of federal laws that have been put in place to protect communities and show how they were able to use those laws to go up against some of the most powerful industries in the country.
Anyone doubtful of the power of regular citizens in this country would find "The Riverkeepers" a refreshing read.
Great service, best yet.......2004-01-16
I'd order all my books from them if i could, plus it supports a charity. It got here quickly and in good condition. Completely satisfied
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